Describes a teaching practice that uses oral communication, including popular language and poetry, for persons from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Focuses on the needs and interests of literacy learners at a time when rationalists, with demands for literacy skills for increased productivity, are influencing the shape of literacy programs.…

Writers of correspondence course study guides should be aware of boundaries between oral and written language; differences between textbook and study guide prose; the need for direct address, informality, personalization, clarity, and simplicity; and the diverse tastes, learning styles, and levels of their audience. (SK)

Describes project results on the nature of oral presentations given and produced by technical/managerial professionals working in business and industry. Notes that the survey responses focused on issues including frequency, target audience(s), objectives, data/information base, use of visuals, equipment, obstacles, and training. States that the…

Describes pressures applied to the Department of Speech Communication at Iowa State University. Discusses the shifting and ambiguous relationships with upper administration, and the resulting dispersal of the department. (SR)

Describes the School of Interpersonal Communication at Ohio University and its recent successful effort to include a focus on international education by establishing a new PhD joint program with Bangkok University. (SR)

States that the internationalization of any professional institution begins with self-examination. Relates personal experiences with the internationalization of culture, including recollections of the first international Speech Communication Association (SCA) meetings in China and Russia. Describes the World Communication Association (WCA) and its…

Addresses trends in ethnographic studies of media audiences. Asserts that, although rethinking of ethnography is necessary, it has the potential to paralyze research and continue building an abstract theoretical narcissism. States that the future of cultural audience studies lies with attempts to improve ethnographic practice. Argues that feminist…

Examines Edward Miner Gallaudet's speech, "Remarks on the Combined System," to illustrate the power of the rhetorical knowledge thesis to account for paradoxes in Gallaudet's discourse on educating the deaf student. Contends that Gallaudet offered his remarks to preserve his ideas for a later age when they might receive sympathetic…

Results of nasalance measurements of 18 hearing-impaired children (ages 3-11) under the conditions of aided speech, unaided speech, and speech with amplification found no significant differences when comparisons were made between younger and older groups and when made according to the severity of hearing loss. (Author/DB)

The model of discourse comprehension of W. Kintsch (1988) draws on connectionist ideas and gives rise to some mathematical questions that are investigated in this paper, giving theoretical support to the model. (Author/SLD)

Presents a master syllabus describing a communication course designed to (1) maintain a hands-on internship experience for students; (2) provide a method for integrating theoretical principles into "real-world" settings; and (3) offer an avenue for faculty supervisors to receive credit for time spent teaching and administering…

Discusses outcomes assessment. Describes the Boise State Project, a comprehensive outcomes assessment study of alumni of the Department of Communication spanning a 20-year period, 1970-1989. Discusses conceptualization and design, methodology, analysis of data, general survey findings, and conclusions. (SR)

Describes a microevaluation approach to faculty assessment written for a department with 15 faculty engaged in both traditional scholarship and creative activities in a research-oriented university. Presents the assessment instrument. (SR)

Argues that video can provide effective feedback in performance courses (in speech communication) by creating opportunities for students to take the role of observer, identify and emphasize specific skills, receive feedback simultaneously with performance, and make comparisons. (SR)

Responds to an article in the same issue regarding research methods for conversational cognition. Reviews goals and methods of cognitive science, provides a model of conversation that contrasts the interests of cognitive science and communication, summarizes research on conversation that serves both fields, and contrasts that with the research…